European officials question Google's privacy policy — A European Commission advisory group has raised concerns about how Google uses and manages users' search data. — A privacy advisory group composed of representatives from all of the European Union countries sent Google …

Apple Rises After IPhone Media Report — Apple Shares Rise Following Media Report That IPhone Will Be Launched June 20 — NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Apple Inc. rose Friday after a media report stated the company's much-anticipated iPhone will be released June 20.

Apple confirms MySpace ban in retail stores — In New York City, you can go to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in midtown 24 hours a day, seven days a week and browse the Web from the Macs on display. But due to a new Apple regulation, you can no longer access MySpace.com.

Josh Greenbaum's Misbegotten Prognostications — Josh Greenbaum is a curmudgeon (and a fellow Enterprise Irregular). I don't think I'm speaking out of school here, in fact I would hasten to say he probably wears that badge with pride. Like many curmudgeons, much of his perspective …

Exclusive Pix+Vid: New NETGEAR Skype Wifi Phone — As I've written before, (guest) blogging has its priveleges. While at NETGEAR's HQ last week interviewing employees for the blog, the company's CEO, Patrick Lo, walked in and pulled from his pocket the still-in-development 2nd-generation WiFi Skype Phone!

Adderton: "I'm Still CEO" — Reports of Peter Adderton's demise have been greatly exaggerated. In an exclusive interview with peHUB, the Amp'd Mobile CEO says that he remains in charge of the company, despite numerous blog reports suggesting otherwise (see here, here, here and my piece from this morning).

Google Calendar Gets Mobile — If there was an award for "Best Google Service That Not That Many People Think About When They Think About Google," it might well go to Google Calendar. It's just plain well done, with a slick and simple interface and plenty of features.

Doc Searls is dead wrong on newspapers — I have a lot of respect for Doc Searls — he's been at this whole blogging/social media thing a lot longer than I have, and he is a thoughtful and sincere guy. He also sent me a high-res copy of some of his sunset photos after I saw them on his blog, and for that I am grateful.

Intel: Software needs to heed Moore's Law — SAN FRANCISCO—After years of delivering faster and faster chips that can easily boost the performance of most desktop software, Intel says the free ride is over. — Already, chipmakers like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are delivering processors …

OLPC Seeks Educational Games for XO Laptop — "Game Jam" contest on June 8 will challenge developers to produce fun, educational software for the OLPC. — The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project is asking software coders to develop free, open-source educational computer games for the XO laptop …

Facebook Opens Up Its 'Platform' To Everyone — "Facebook is the anti-MySpace" and "Facebook is a new type of "Web 2.0" portal" are some of the things that were and are being said yesterday and today about the social network's new "Facebook Platform" initiative.

Make room for new video ad formats — This week marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of click-to-play video ads. To that end, we thought it'd be fitting to introduce three new members of our click-to-play video ads family: the 728x90 Leaderboard, the 120x600 Skyscraper, and the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper.

The Death of the Small Guy — There is a powerful process at work in internet retailing that I call normalization. By this, I am referring to the tendency of markets to gravitate to a state where the profits go to the companies that deserve them while inferior companies fail.

Dell goes Ubuntu; "Windows tax" is $50 according to pricing — When Dell put up its IdeaStorm community-feedback site, the company was surprised by the strong response in favor of shipping personal computers with Linux. The PC company then announced that it would offer Ubuntu Linux on select systems …